fly away little sparrow

I don’t think I need to explain to y’all why this is wrong but in case I do, buying a service from someone and following their rules as a client is not a breech of consent.

A lot of the danger that comes from being a prostitute has to do with its illegality. If a client breaks the rules and the service provider can’t file a complaint without risking imprisonment of themselves and/or their client, that’s not a safe work environment.

The idea that nobody would willingly sell sexual services unless they’re desperate is just false. There’s also a lot of other jobs people do when they’re desperate and they don’t like doing. For me it was working retail.

The difference between me pretending to be happy for clientele while working retail and someone pretending to be happy while selling sexual services to clients is that while I was working retail I at least theoretically had sick leave, health insurance, and a way to file a complaint if a customer assaulted me.

Bert: Bert and I

Ernie: Bert and I, we've been best friends forever, but we're also something else too!

Strange, funny, and heartrending

I mean sometimes they do yeah. I know a white guy with monolid eyes and zero known Asian ancestors and he absolutely experiences anti-Asian racism on a fairly regular basis because people think he’s mixed Asian/white. I know a woman who was told throughout her life that she was Native as an adoptee with no known history or background who experienced incredibly violent amounts of anti-Native racism until she discovered as an adult through DNA test that she is 100% white. I know white people who tan incredibly dark in the summer comparatively that are constantly accused of being mixed race and experiencing racism due to that, usually anti-Mexican racism perpetrated against white people with Greek or Italian ancestors.

If you think cis butches don’t experience both transphobia and misogyny and homophobia for daring to be women who break gender roles while still holding onto their womanhood you’ve sorely misunderstood just how bad butches have it in this world sorry. If you don’t think cis queens experience transphobia and homophobia and misogyny for daring to be men who break gender roles while being loud and proud about it and still holding onto their manhood then you’ve sorely mistaken just how bad they have it in this world as well.

Not to mention all of the cis men who wear dresses and skirts and makeup and nail polish and heels simply because they like them who experience all of these things. All of the cis straight women who simply just exist but something about them doesn’t pass society’s “woman enough” test, leading to them being caught in bathroom bills and sporting rules and being attacked by people who mistake them for being transgender or gay.

Just like how straight people experience homophobia to such a degree that they literally beat their children out of any potential deviance from rigidly upheld gender roles and let politicians make jokes on national TV about how they’d drown their pre-teen kids if they came out as LGBT. Do you really think a straight kid still figuring themselves out hears that and doesn’t internalize that homophobia? Doesn’t rigidly hold themselves to some impossible standard so that no one could ever possibly think they’re gay? You don’t think straight teenage boys who maybe don’t pass some bully’s straightness test are getting the shit kicked out of them for “being gay” when, surprise, they aren’t? You don’t think all those kids being attacked by their priests and coaches and teachers are being told “this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t gay” when they’re literally not gay? Do you know how many straight kids had close calls at my school that famously expels all gay kids, because someone made up a believable enough rumor? Do you know how many of them still got their shit kicked in even though administration ultimately decided to let them stay?

All bigotry is violent and all bigotry catches people it doesn’t “intend” to and hurts them as well. It doesn’t matter what someone’s label is, or if they even have one. It matters if the person enacting the violence is doing it because their victim didn’t pass whatever “acceptable enough” test they didn’t know they were being subjected to.

A few months before he passed away in 2003, a 74 year old children’s television host sat down in the same studio where he had filmed 895 episodes over 33 years and recorded one last message. It wasn’t for children. It was for the adults who had grown up watching him.

Fred Rogers hosted Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood on American public television from 1968 to 2001. For over three decades he walked into the same set, changed into a cardigan and sneakers, looked directly into the camera, and spoke to children as if each one of them was the only person in the room. He never raised his voice, never talked down to his audience, and never rushed a single moment.

In that final recording, he looked into the camera one last time and said “I’m just so proud of all of you who have grown up with us. And I know how tough it is some days to look with hope and confidence on the months and years ahead. But I would like to tell you what I often told you when you were much younger. I like you just the way you are.”

Happy 15th birthday to Nyan Cat! The post above is the original and first post of the 8bit kitty back on April 2nd, 2011.